Mark Edmundson’s “Liberal Arts & Lite Entertainment” in his book Why Teach? develops an argument about the culture surrounding education. The university professor takes a stance on the problems that he has experienced both in his own classroom and observed on campus as well as others, and he assigns these problems—his claims—appropriate blames. Enough logic is used to make these “blames” more factual, and he often claims how things are and usually offers several reasons as to why. His essay, originally written in 1997, begins with his own university before branching out to all those across the country, and it is followed by a deduction of student culture and professors. He gives hope to the idea of the acceptance and praising of “genius” (as
“What Every American Should Know” by Eric Liu thoroughly examines the issue of cultural literacy and its place in modern America. It presents a convincing argument against E.D. Hirsch’s book on the same topic which included some 5000 things that he thought defined cultural literacy and every American should know. Liu argues that America has changed over time, becoming more multicultural, and to capture the cultural literacy of the country, no one person should sit down and propose what they think everyone else should know. Instead he suggests that in order to capture a contemporary view of the nation, every American should be involved in the making of the list. The most engaging part of this article is Liu’s idea that this new crowd-sourced
Comparably, in the “The Third Wave” all the students are shown how conformity is dangerous by history teacher Ron
Martha Nussbaum has experiences in writing about education related topics such as liberal education, already publishing a book called „Cultivating Humanity”. However her inspiration to write her book entitled “Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities” came from a person of the Spencer Foundation named Mike McPherson but also because of the fact that she was resident fellow at the foundation. In addition to this, her association with the Cambridge school in Weston, Massachusetts helped her by giving her optimism in what type of education she wanted to defend in her book. ( xii )
In chapter 2, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paul Freire, he explains his view of the educational system. Freire argues that the educational system uses the wrong method of teaching, the “banking” method to teach students. He suggests a new method called “problem-posing.” He believes that this method is more effective for students and teachers. Banking education is based on teachers assuming that the students are passive and that they can take all control, determine what would be learned and just “fill” the students with facts.
Ungar’s essay, Charles Murray discusses why a liberal arts degree is unnecessary in his essay, “Are Too Many People Going to College?”. Murray believes that the basics of a liberal education are indeed important, but that students should be provided the basics of liberal arts in elementary and middle school (Murray 223). In this essay, Murray cites E.D. Hirsch Jr.’s book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.” Hirsch Jr. and Murray believe that there is a “body of core knowledge” that all students should have, and that “this core knowledge is an important part of the glue that holds the culture together” but that this core knowledge should be taught in grades K-8 (Murray 224). Murray discusses how young children are much better at memorizing facts than adults are, to support his position that kids should be memorizing this core knowledge at a younger age (Murray 224).
David Foster Wallace is an American writer. He spoke at the Kenyon Commencement Address in 2005, where he gave a speech to the graduating class of the year. David tells the graduates of Kenyon College what the true meaning of a liberal arts degree is, and how they should go about finding it. David Foster Wallace’s appeals to credibility, emotion and logical reasoning in his speech – “This Is Water” – to strengthen the idea that the meaning of education is learning how and what to think, independently.
Bourdieu (1986) has a wide variety of capitals and he states that capitals come in three fundamental ways, as cultural, social and economic. (Bourdieu, 1986). Bourdieu’s best known concept is cultural capital and it exists in combination with the other forms of capital. “It cannot be understood in isolation from the other forms of capital, economic, symbolic and social capital that together constitute advantage and disadvantage in society”. (Bourdieu, 1985 cited in Reay, D., 2000 p.569).
The movie “Freedom Writers” presents itself as a movie that challenges stereotypes and stigmas against students who come from stigmatized backgrounds. While the film addresses some problematic assumptions, it also exacerbates other stereotypes and misconceptions. The film “Freedom Writers” begins with the intention to disprove the idea that students from certain ethnic and racial backgrounds are “unteachable,” but the narrative of the movie contains many errors in the depiction of the students and the portrayal of the teacher. The depiction of the students is problematic because the actors are much older than the age of the children they are expected to be portraying.
Dr. King organizes his thoughts about education being a culture, is beyond the need for education to be more efficient. America is one of the most richest countries in the world, but build schools that never allocated enough resources. As he knew, one of the major roadblocks to equality in this country is equal access to education and its benefits. Dr. King wanted what every culture would be in their education, whether Native American, Asian, Hispanic, or African, system that promotes the values, traditions, and beliefs. Dr. King expresses how we are prone to let our lives be invaded with propaganda, legions of half truths, and how the press is pursuing an agenda that the viewers are fed half truths.
Within the realm of education, there are numerous ideologies that may be utilized to construct a curriculum. Several of these ideologies are more prominent than others. With this in mind, there are four main ideologies that are analyzed more frequently than others; these include Scholar Academic, Social Efficiency, Learner-Centered, and Social Reconstruction. Throughout this paper, the focal point will be assessing how these views are applied, both inside and outside the classroom.
Critical Reflection In this assignment, I am going to define cultural awareness and cultural intelligence, and will also discuss how they relate to each other. Cultural awareness is the foundation of communication; it involves the ability to standing back from over selves and becoming aware of cultural values, beliefs and perceptions (Brislin.2006). Being aware of own cultural includes the goals and boundaries of a cultural; it also includes religion, language and relationships. On the other hand cultural intelligence has various meanings (Brislin.2006).
Cultural Anthropology is the study of human beings, their behavior and how patterns in their language, personalities, gender, family, art, politics or rituals learned from being a part of a certain society gives meaning to their existence and affects how they organize their lives. Culture Involves Concepts, Generalizations, Abstractions, Assumptions, and Ideas. The ants are locked into the specifics of their nest-building behavior. It must work the same all the time. If some important variable is different, the ants cannot make specific adjustments.
Sadker & Sadker (2017) believes that, “behind every school and every teacher is a set of related beliefs--a philosophy of education--that influences what and how students are taught. A philosophy of education represents answers to questions about the purpose of schooling, a teacher's role, and what should be taught and by what methods” (Chapter 9). I seek to adopt the progressivism approach. Progressive education rejects traditional education as it is child-centred and not subject-centred (Reedy, 2017). My Philosophy of education requires me to ask myself questions on why do I teach, what do I teach and how do I teach.
“Arts education is critical for helping students develop creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving abilities” (Chernin). The arts can help people succeed. Art is a way that people can express themselves and share their beliefs. Arts in education can help people focus and attend. Fine arts are important because they make a huge impact on kids education, they make an impact on how people pursue their life careers, and it also helps with stress and anxiety.
